Tag Archives: Granny Hooks A Crook

Goodbye Bookshelf Books! NO I Can’t Do It!

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bookshelfRecently a friend of mine started packing her books for a move. There seemed to be many books left on the bookshelf. She explained, “These are the books I can’t bear to pack away yet, and be without them for even a little while.”

I love to read. I have managed to manage my book obsession and get the books down to one book shelf, only because I read more Kindle books these days. I still love the smell of bookstores and have to glue my credit cards to the bottom of my purse so they can’t come unstuck when I want to make huge purchases in the bookstores. I still finger with reverence the cover of books and close my eyes in pleasure at the feel of them in my hand.

Having said that, the Kindle makes my life easier when I travel. I only have one bag now instead of two extra to carry my books and magazines. I can have a new book at the touch of my finger to my Kindle screen. I fear that my Kindle is becoming my bookshelf because I have hundreds of books on my Kindle.

After viewing my friends bookshelf and wanting to simplify my life some more I thought perhaps I could empty my bookshelves.

The top shelf is lined with books by Catherine Coulter, http://www.catherinecoulter.com/, Kristin Hannah, http://kristinhannah.com/content/index.php, and Max Lucado,  http://maxlucado.com/ . The rest of the shelves are a mixture of books my friends and my daughter  have given me that are quirky and fun and speak to the creative person inside of me. There is also a shelf of bible studies that I have never done, most are by Women of Faith, http://www.womenoffaith.com/.

I positioned my chair to climb on so I could reach the top shelf and start purging the rest of my books. As I touched each book by Catherine Coulter I could not bear to move it off the shelf. I moved on to my Kristin Hannah books. I touched the first one to move it to a box. My hand would not move. I could not take a book by Kristin Hannah down either. Nor could I move the Max Lucado books to a box for good will. I arranged them neatly by author on the shelf.

I moved down to the Bible Study books by the Women of Faith and the books I have by Patsy Clairmont, http://patsyclairmont.com/, and Barbara Johnson. I reminded myself that I should start a Bible Study books so the books stayed on the shelf too along with Patsy and Barbara.

Next were all the filled journals, empty journals, and quirky books my friends and my daughter had given me. It was a funny things but those books seemed glued to the shelf.

I now understood what my friend meant by not being able to part with her books yet for the move. I could not part with the books on my shelf. My favorite authors, my quirky sense of humor books especially those by SARK, http://planetsark.com/ had to stay. Looking at the books alone without reading them gives me hope for the future that perhaps someday my writing will be cherished by someone the same way I cherish the books on my bookshelf. I did not find one book that gave me a ho hum feeling. These books were all on this certain bookshelf because they speak to my heart.

If you are feeling guilty about those books collecting dust, ask yourself what part of your heart they move. Keep the ones that do because they are not dust catchers, they are heart catchers.

 

Who Do You Trust?

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johnny carson photo: Johnny Carson DVD Disc1Menu.pngSOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING Column published in the Albert Lea Tribune June 23.2014

Who do you trust?

“Who Do You Trust” used to be a popular show on television in the 1950s. It was originally emceed by Johnny Carson. Three couples were chosen for the show. A man and a woman were chosen because of their unusual backgrounds. Carson would tell the main contestant, who was the man, the category, and ask if he was going to answer the question or trust the woman to answer the question.

I was young, very young, when this show was on. I had to look up the rules. I found it interesting that Carson asked the man to trust the woman and not the woman to trust the man. Remember this is the ’50s before woman’s lib.

Trust is a word that is bantered about in relationships with one another. We have all heard it: We have to earn someone’s’ trust. Once trust is broken it is hard to forgive or more importantly forget. We think long and hard about the relationships we enter into, and the trust that we put into people that we had a relationship with.

However, every day we trust those we don’t know without thinking about it. For instance, we trust the bus driver on the city route will drive safely and get us to our destination. We trust the pilot of the plane knows how to fly and is alert enough to do it. We trust our friends and neighbors to give us a ride around town. We hop into the car without a thought about trust.

Take a moment to think about who you blindly trust that you do not know that impacts your life on a daily basis. Who do you trust without question that you do not know personally that performs a service for you?

I love to eat out at fast food restaurants, fine dining restaurants, unique restaurants that are not part of a local chain, and also chain restaurants. You have heard my rants before about dirty bathrooms in restaurants. My appetite wanes in an establishment where I am eating when I visit a dirty bathroom. I always wonder what the kitchen is like. I do not mean the towels-on-the-floor type of dirty, but actual dirt on walls and corners and toilets that show the bathroom has not been given a good cleaning. If I can’t trust the establishment  to clean the bathroom where I need to wash my hands, can I trust them to prepare my food?

Recently I have expanded that aversion to buffets in some restaurants. I was dining at a restaurant that offered a buffet. I ordered the buffet. As I picked up my plate at the buffet, I noticed all the grime and crumbs in the corners of the cart that housed the plates. I let that slide.

I looked at the buffet. There was food and a layer of dust on the glass that covered the buffet. I let that slide. I was hungry. I got my food and sat down to eat.

I went back to the buffet to get some soup and salad.  I picked up a bowl from the many bowls that were sitting in the corner by the food I was going to choose. Bowl after bowl had a rim of soup or some sort of dried food on it. I wondered if perhaps they were storing the dirty bowls next to the food, and I had picked it up by mistake. This time my appetite was going away.

I mentioned to my husband that we were not going to eat at this establishment again. As I thought about it, I thought perhaps I should pursue this a little more. The waitress brought our check and inquired about our meal. I explained to her my feelings about the cleanliness of the buffet. She wasn’t shocked. She agreed with me. She asked me to speak to the manager because the staff complaints fell on deaf ears.

I did speak to the manager and actually took the manager over to show what I felt needed to be cleaned up. The response was not what I hoped. I received defensiveness and excuses that things were cleaned all the time. Clearly the manager’s eyes were different from mine and the staff.

Who do you trust? We blindly trust that the rides we take from carnivals we don’t know are safe. We blindly trust the food we eat and are served from places where we chose to dine are safe. We blindly trust  the business that sets up our zip line when we chose a daring adventure will keep us from falling.

We trust without question, and when we see something we don’t trust, we do not always take action for fear of causing a problem for others or thinking we don’t need to deal with it because we don’t have to frequent that establishment again.

Think about what may happen if we see something broken in those establishments where we blindly put our trust for our safety and we stay silent. The next person may be the one to pay for our broken trust because we had been silent and left without trying to mend that trust.

“The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.” — Stephen King

 

Do I Wail or Whine About Empty Nest Syndrome?

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Something About Nothing by Julie Seedorf published the week of June 16, 2014 in http://www.albertleatribune.com and the Courier Sentinel

Whining and wailing were the words that were the topic of a discussion recently on a Facebook page of writers. We were all listing our pet peeves about writing and the words that are over used in books.

For instance, I have a habit of writing the way I talk. I say “so” and “that” often and other words I use that do not contribute to the story and bog it down with extra words. Thank goodness for editors that — I mean, who — occasionally take me to task for adding those words.

This day the discussion centered around books where people used the word “wailed,” which means to make a mournful cry or a high-pitched noise. The other word in the discussion was whining, used in books to describe a character or what the character is saying. There are characters that whine through the entire book.

As I was taking part in this discussion I realized I have been whining quite a bit lately. I have been whining about wanting to move closer to my children who are the parents of my grandchildren. I have been whining about being closer to a coffeehouse so I do not have to drive 20 miles to have my latte and pull out my computer to write. There is something about coffeehouses that sparks the creativity in me.

I have thought that my whining was actually about living in a bigger city. After spending a busy weekend with my family, and in a bigger community, I realized that perhaps my whining was more about still suffering from empty-nest syndrome. That realization was a surprise to me since I haven’t had any children in that nest for at least 15 years.

I have settled into a routine: Watch my own television programs, hibernate in the winter and do the normal everyday things. What I have come to realize is that if I don’t have frequent contact with people younger than me, I get more set in my ways and I feel older. If I don’t physically engage in conversation with young minds, my world doesn’t expand as much. There is so much to be learned from the youth of today.

It seems that if there are no young people in my home, it is easier to not take part in the youth activities in my community. If I don’t have a connection with a young person, then even though I may go to those activities, I am still a bystander. Where there is no encouragement to take part it is easier to settle into a shuttered life.

Visiting the city I also recognize the opportunities there are for older people. You can get lost in a big city, too, but there are also senior community groups such as the one at the Chaska Community Center that are active daily, have weekly activities and trips long and short each week.

The seniors have their own part of the building and daily there is something happening for older adults to get out and socialize with others of their age and also with the younger people in and about the community center.

I like being part of a small close-knit community where neighbors help neighbors. That is the richness of living in a small town. If I walk out my door I can guarantee that no matter where I go in my community I will meet someone I know. I like the quietness of a small town and I can wallow in that quietness, perhaps too much.

So I have been whining, caught between the richness of my community, and a place where I have lived most of my life, and wanting to expand my world to try the big city and all it offers.

Family is a big part of that exploring the big city feeling for me. It is about empty-nest syndrome and missing watching my children’s plays and basketball games. I am missing the daily rush to get done with supper and get the kids where they need to be for their schedules. It is missing what I learned each day from my children. It is missing the cute stuff they say and the laughter of having a family in the house.

Those of us who have children have all went through it. I can’t imagine I am the only mom who is the age I am and still missing the daily grind with kids. Perhaps it is about remembering my youth and the family that I was surrounded by, aunts, uncles, cousins and missing that connection, too.

Do I wallow and whine and wail or do I accept where I am placed? Do I, or I should say we, the other half of the empty-nest syndrome person, spread our wings and move closer to our kids and grandkids so we can enjoy the hustle and bustle of their sports, their music, their young lives?

I have to think, like the dialogue in a book, that my whining and wailing is getting repetitive. Is it time to edit the dialogue of my life?